This invention relates to a method and apparatus for removing tobacco shreds from the end of a filter portion of a tobacco-containing smoking article after the filter has been severed from the tobacco body.
It is common practice to perform various tests on commercial and experimental smoking articles and their component parts following assembly. These tests include measuring the physical characteristics of the article and component parts. More specifically, a plurality of like smoking articles are subjected to one or more tests corresponding to one or more specific properties to evaluate the uniformity of the measured property or properties from article to article and to obtain statistical data regarding the mean characteristics of like articles. Different groups of like articles are typically subjected to the same series of tests under conditions that permit comparing the statistical characteristics of different like articles and different groups of like articles.
Such tests are performed on the filter portion of a smoking article. To conduct these tests, the filter typically has to be removed from the smoking article body. Various techniques have been used for this filter removal process. Most of these techniques employ a razor blade where the cigarette body is separated from the filter a few millimeters above the filter. The cutting is generally performed by hand or with the aid of an apparatus which employs a razor blade on the end of a push-rod.
A problem with severing the filter from the tobacco portion is that there is a tendency for a small amount of individual tobacco shreds to stick to the end of the filter because of the porous surface morphology of the filter. In addition, a length of cigarette paper overwrapping the article may extend from the end of the filter material a sufficient distance to retain a plug of tobacco shreds after the cutting process. The tobacco shreds must, however, be removed from the tobacco end of the filter material (referred to herein as "deshredding") prior to performing any characterization tests on the filter to obtain accurate and reproducible test data.
One technique for removing the tobacco shreds from the end of the filter comprises manually shaking, tapping or agitating the filter so that the shreds will loosen and fall away from the filter. Another technique is to remove manually the shreds with a finger or a small tool.
One problem with the prior known techniques is that they are manual operations which are not adaptable to an automated deshredding technique or an automatic workstation for removing shreds for characterization tests on smoking articles.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide for an improved method and apparatus for removing tobacco shreds from the end of a filter portion of a smoking article that has been cut away from a tobacco body of the article.
It is another object of this invention to provide for removing tobacco shreds from the end of a filter with a process and apparatus that can be incorporated into an automated facility for testing the filters.